This is, I believe, the first time this problem has been systematically
examined in our government. It is evident that there is much more for us
all to learn; and my first recommendation is that, under Linc Gordon’s leadership, work on this
problem be made a continuing account and that the various agencies
capable of making a contribution continue to expand and refine their
knowledge on a coordinated basis. A working party operating under the
Latin American IRG might perform this
function.

In addition, CIAP should set up a
working group that would regularly engage the IBRD, IDB, AID, and the OAS in this field.

What emerges of substance may be briskly summarized as follows:

1.

South America is at a stage of historical evolution where the
further development of its frontiers can contribute to food
production, a widening of markets, regional integration, and the
settlement of various bilateral disputes.

2.

A rational program for exploiting these frontiers must be
geared to other aspects of South American development, with
careful attention to the comparative benefits to be derived from
intensive investment in existing areas as opposed to extensive
investment in expanding the frontiers. The opening of the South
American frontiers has an important role to play in the region’s
future; but it is not a panacea.

3.

There are four major complexes which comprise the bulk of the
frontier regions of South America capable of rational
economic exploitation from the present forward.

—The Darien Gap area of Panama and
Colombia;

—The Andean Piedmont, running in an irregular
narrow belt for 3,000 miles from the Venezuelan
border through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, to the Santa
Cruz region of Bolivia;

There are special further potentialities in the tropical
flood plains of the Amazon; the Guayana region of Venezuela
and British Guiana; the linking of Buenos Aires to the whole
region south of Rio–Sao Paulo; and the River Plate drainage
system.

The character of all these regions are briefly sketched in
the report.

4.

There is little prospect in sight for the economic
exploitation of the vast Amazon–Orinoco basin unless the
proposal for making it a lake (by damming the rivers) should
prove feasible.

5.

As the survey of seventy-four projects under way or envisaged
indicates (Appendix I), there is now a great deal of activity
focused on the opening up of the frontiers; and it is generally
following a rational [Page 98]pattern. The task for policy in Latin America is to make the
expansion of the frontiers more effective and purposeful.

6.

A political point of some importance: the opening up of these
frontier regions could, in a number of South American countries,
strengthen the sense of nationhood and contribute to political
and social stability. Moreover, notably in the Andean Piedmont,
but elsewhere as well, the laying out of roads and organized
settlements is a significant element in preventing the
possibilities of Communist insurgency.

7.

Detailed recommendations are set out in Part Four of the
attached summary report. Briefly, they are:

—The Darien Gap complex be urgently examined as a
whole, notably in the light of our Panamanian
negotiations. Its various elements have been hitherto
treated separately.

—We maintain a policy of selective but continued
support for road-building in each of the four countries
engaged in opening up the Andean Piedmont. (The report
isolates the road segments judged most rational for the
next phase.)

—We assign specific responsibility to Linc Gordon quietly to
explore the possibility of exploiting work on
multinational projects to ease or settle the major
outstanding bilateral quarrels in South America.

—We clarify our minds on the economics of frontier
settlement in the light of recent experience and
establish Alliance for Progress policies based on this
review. No serious agreed guidelines now exist.

—We examine urgently on an interdepartmental basis,
perhaps under the aegis of the SIG, the security and other problems
involved in a systematic use of orbital remote-sensor
measurement of land and geological formations in South
America, providing you with a report. These methods
could accelerate rapidly mineral discovery and
exploitation, notably in the Andes.

—We intensify our support for your proposal, via
CIAP, for
accelerated development of chemical fertilizer
production in Latin America.

—We set up both within the CIAP framework and within the U.S.
Government continuing systematic work on the development
of the South American frontiers.

—CIAP should consider
this summer (after the report on multinational projects
by the Development and Resources Corporation, headed by
David Lilienthal) the publication of materials that
would dramatize what is going forward in this field and
its potentialities for Latin American development and
integration.

—We re-examine (with full attention to our balance of
payments position) our present policy on local cost
financing of development projects with a view to
permitting financing of local costs of certain
infrastructure projects as part of an over-all program
for opening frontier areas.

If further detailed examination of this study makes sense to you, I
recommend that an NSAM be issued
assigning responsibility for the [Page 99]task to State—specifically to Linc
Gordon. A suggested draft NSAM for your approval is at Tab A.4

You may wish to weave into your statements on Latin America passages
indicating an awareness of the frontier development going forward, its
potentialities, and your support for it. A possible draft is at Tab
B.5

Should you (or the Vice President) visit Latin America, you may wish to
visit certain selected frontier areas as well as the conventional
cities.6

The report was prepared by the Department’s Policy
Planning Council in May 1966; attached but not printed.
Rostow was chairman of the Council until
April 1, when he succeeded Bundy as Special Assistant to the President.↩

Attached but not printed. In NSAM No. 349, May 31, the President
instructed the Department to report on development of the South
American frontier. (Johnson Library, National Security File,
National Security Action Memorandums, NSAM No. 349) Progress reports, dated February 14,
1967, July 2, 1967, and March 25, 1968, are ibid.↩

Attached but not printed. The
President approved the draft statement. In a speech marking the
fifth anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, August 17,
Johnson referred to development of the
inner frontier: “The eastern slopes of the Andes, the water systems
of the Gran Pantanal River Plate, and Orinoco, the barely touched
areas of Central America and of Panama—these are just a few of the
frontiers, which, this morning, beckon to us.” (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966,
Book I, pp. 824–829)↩

A handwritten note by the
President at the end of the memorandum reads: “Good. L”↩